Drought has emerged as one of the major constraints in banana production. Its effects are pronounced substantially in the tropics and sub-tropics of the world due to climate change. Bananas are quite sensitive to drought; however, genotypes with "B" genome are more tolerant to abiotic stresses than those solely based on "A" genome. In particular, bananas with "ABB" genomes are more tolerant to ...

Fig 1: A village woman carrying bananas home to prepare a meal. Project: " From food security to food sovereignty. Citizens and local authorities towards a new paradigm in Europe to reduce world hunger " December 2010

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Dessert and cooking bananas are vegetatively propagated crops of great importance for both the subsistence and the livelihood of people in developing countries. A wide diversity of diploid and triploid cultivars including AA, AB, AS, AT, AAA, AAB, ABB, AAS and AAT genomic constitutions exists. Within each of this genome groups, cultivars are classified into subgroups that ar...

Controlled ripening of climacteric fruits, such as bananas and avocados, is a critical step to provide consumers with high-quality products while reducing postharvest losses. Prior to ripening, these fruits can be stored for an extended period of time but are usually not suitable for consumption. However, once ripening is initiated, they undergo irreversible changes that lead to rapid quality l...

Banana is one of the most important food crops in Indonesia. Its production is greater than any other agricultural commodity. With the population of 230 million in 2010, banana was consumed up to three million tons in this country. However, Banana Blood Disease Bacterium (BDB), one of the most devastating banana pathogens in the world, which is only found in Indonesia, threatens not only the gr...

Algebraic data types and catamorphisms (folds) play a central role in functional programming as they allow programmers to define recursive data structures and operations on them uniformly by structural recursion. Likewise, in object-oriented (OO) programming, recursive hierarchies of object types with virtual methods play a central role for the same reason. There is a semantical correspondence ...

We are reporting a forty-seven year old female who had three attacks of acute pancreatitis after having; eaten bananas. She was treated with a light diet and intravenous fluids during each of her admissions. The treatment concluded with the disappearance of clinical symptoms such as epigastralgia, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea within a few days. In addition, elevated serum and urine amylase lev...

Genetic improvement of planting material (in a broad sense) is an important component of agricultural growth for nations and regions in the process of economic development. Asia’s Green Revolutions in rice and wheat are perhaps the best-known examples of dramatic agricultural growth associated with crop genetic improvement. Most experts agree that no such seed-based revolution has occurred in S...

The disappearance of chlorophyll is a visual sign of fruit ripening. Yet, chlorophyll breakdown in fruit has hardly been explored; its non-green degradation products are largely unknown. Here we report the analysis and structure elucidation of colorless tetrapyrrolic chlorophyll breakdown products in commercially available, ripening bananas (Musa acuminata, Cavendish cultivar). In banana peels,...

Bananas and plantains are important for food security and income, but they are beset with numerous abiotic and biotic challenges that drastically reduce yield. Consequently, a range of technologies have been developed to tackle the various constraints. This study was carried out to determine the adoption potential of improved banana cultivars by smallholder farmers in Malawi. The study was carr...